breathing through an oxygen mask
by syndomatic
Summary: She is still beautiful when she screams. — MortyErika


I own nothing. Title from Eisley.

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**breathing through an oxygen mask  
**(_why do you run?_)

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_**i. **_

He thinks about a lot of things—autumn nights and white curtains and empty houses—but mostly, he thinks of her.

_**ii.**_

She is always there—he can't remember a single time when she isn't—standing still and frozen, her pale face framed by streetlights and her skirt rustling against the grass. She is the image of delicate and perfection and the first thing he thinks of when they meet is that she doesn't belong here, in Goldenrod; where the air is smoke and the stars are fluorescent lights. She doesn't mind, though—not really—because she never leaves.

She looks at him, sometimes,—sadly, knowingly—with doe eyes that are a thousand shades of brown, and he feels a wave of cold, detached sense of familiarity wash over him. He hates it—it makes him think of family and friends and the past, things that he has no control over (he wonders if she's doing it on purpose, torturing him with her silence and pretty face.)

He hates _her_.

And he wants to say it like it is. He wants to say how much he despises her, how much he wants to see her bleed and cry and _something_, how much he wants to break her, crack open the porcelain façade she wears until it's just pieces lying around her feet.

But then, _oh_, she smiles—in that sardonic, wistful way that she is—and he pauses and he tells himself that he'll let her stay for another tomorrow.

But tomorrow never comes, and history has a way of repeating itself.

(He doesn't mind, though—not really—because he always comes back. To her.)

_**iii.**_

She spends her days tending the school garden and reading literature and watching the streetlights glow from the wooden park-bench. She is easy to analyze, and he takes advantage of it.

She walks home alone after everyone else has left. But not him.

He silently watches her leave through the foggy window and all he can think of is the soft, sincere turn of her lips, the way her fingers tap against the table—third one from the right—as she talks with a nameless shy girl and a nameless polite boy, all stifled laughter and restrained words and he tries to understand but he can't. Something in his stomach flips and turns and he just wants it to _stop_.

He just wants them all to .

_**iv.**_

He coughs endlessly on the way home. He thinks he might be coming down with a cold.

That night, he pours a bag—or two or five or ten—of cough medicine into his mouth. The powder scatters on the stray notepapers on his table, but he doesn't mind.

She is still there, watching, gazing through those depthless eyes. Her figure fades and thins into the light, but he dismisses it as his imagination.

_**v.**_

They're sitting together in a circle in the library, talking about tests and notes and things he cannot care less about. His fingers are shaking and he can't breathe right, but he knows he can't back out.

He speaks—the shy girl looks up and her eyes light up, the polite boy closes his mouth—makes up something about missing his classes and losing his notebook. He winces, waiting for a response.

"Sure," the polite boy says, like it's nothing. He gestures him to sit down with them. Reluctantly, he does.

Somehow, he finds his way into the circle, fitting himself in until he's not sure where the line of pretending and reality lies. He learns a thing or two about geometry and chemistry and that the shy girl is called Jasmine and the polite boy is called Falkner.

Before they leave, he makes a point to ask Falkner about her name. Like it means something.

"Erika," he answers, a little too quickly to be natural. He hides his disgusted scowl under his scarf, and walks away.

_**vi.**_

Erika, he writes. Erika. The notepaper creases under his grip.

Erika.

He coughs, pours himself another bag. This makes thirty.

She seems pleased, the next time they meet. Her eyes flash red when he blinks.

_**vii.**_

She passes him on the way to class.

He makes an effort to smile. She smiles back, and it is neither sardonic nor wistful. It is sweet and sincere and—joyous. Almost.

This is not the girl he thinks of, he realizes. He frowns, but before he can say anything, she is already gone.

He skips his next three classes—nobody will miss him anyway—and starts to plan. There is red under his fingernail.

He doesn't think of her that night.

_**viii.**_

"Soon," he finally says.

_**ix.**_

.

.

.

_**x.**_

She is still beautiful when she screams.

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**A/N: **I can't write anything long, can I? I'll probably delete this when I wake up tomorrow. Maybe when I finally write something good enough to do this pairing justice.

29/9/13


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